All right! It's my Scarlet Street 'Birthday' post! What a great cover for it too, with much more inside these unfolding pages which I won't get into because I think the cover says it all.
I'm beginning my 'Count-down to 60' today, as I won't turn 60 until 2020, but I might need all of this time to prepare. Maybe, ponder is more like it. Actually the idea of aging hasn't been one of my problems. Fortunately, I'm like my Dad when it comes to that. When he turned 60, I remember asking him about it and how he felt and his simple response was, "There's nothing I can do about it anyway."
Turning 30 was pretty cool. So many people close to me where I worked at Ford Motor Company turned out a for a little party and they made a banner for the event, which I still have, with all of their signatures on it. Ellen Friedman, a friend who's loss is still being felt deeply, and whose family owned a sign company, made a special "Happy Birthday" banner for me as well. Ah, memories that will sustain me!
When I hit 40 that was quite amusing, actually. I just couldn't get over that I was a 40 year old as it was something that had seemed so far off, like the year it happened in, 2000. 2000? Weird! It was a much more quiet affair with some very close friends, many of whom would be soon to vanish for a variety of reasons.
By the time I became 50, everything I knew had been torn completely to the ground and changed forever. Fortunately I couldn't be completely eradicated by the forces that be as I found I had quite a strong system of roots (thanks to my parents Marjorie & Robert). I wanted to make 50 special and in hindsight, I suppose it was because I was growing again, picking my way carefully around the traumas of the past figuring new ways to contain them. Indeed "Project 50" was never completed but a continual 'work in progress'.
I will have completed this blog by the end of 2019, before I actually turn 60 years of age, so why not bring it up now? I remind myself I long ago outlived heroes like John Lennon (and finally realized just how young he was when he was taken from us) and Lon Chaney. This year I passed the age of Douglas Fairbanks, when he died. I'm getting close now to George Harrison's age when he passed.
My mother, my last living and strongest rock in my life, will turn 90 next February. I'm so glad I could be here for her. She had been subjected to way more than any person should have to go through in their twilight years. Here's hoping we all have some time yet left to us, because it's all going...and going fast. Just look at the world we now live in, with all of the unnecessary and negative unrest, and a climate that most likely is now too far gone and out of control to be saved. We may be too far gone now to be saved.
I'm not trying to be a downer... just putting out reminders of how every second left to us is just getting more and more precious. So much has changed since the subject of this post first was published. It was a special time for me which I'm happy to preserve for as long as Mankind will allow. Please enjoy Scarlet Street #29 from 1998, and have a very Happy rest of the Summer, and Happy Birthday to all!
*Lawrence Tierney (with Nan Leslie below)
*Lawrence Tierney
*Lawrence Tierney (with Clair Trevor below)
*Lawrence Tierney
*Lawrence Tierney (with Phillip Reed and Elisabeth Risdon below)
*Lawrence Tierney
*Lawrence Tierney (with Anne Jeffreys and George Cleveland below)
*Lawrence Tierney (with Anne Jeffreys below)
*Lawrence Tierney (with Anne Jeffreys below)
*Audrey Totter
*Audrey Totter (with Clark Gable center and Ray Milland bottom).
*Audrey Totter
*Audrey Totter (with Ted North center and Robert Taylor bottom)
*Audrey Totter
*Audrey Totter (with Ray Milland bottom).
*Robert Wise (on the set of "West Side Story" above.)
*Robert Wise (with Julie Andrews below and Gene Roddenberry above.)
*Robert Wise (with Shirley Maclaine and Robert Mitchum above.)
*"The Big Sleep" [1956]
*"Laura" [1944]
*"Chinatown" [1976]
*"This Gun For Hire" [1942]
*"Night Has A Thousand Eyes" [1948]
*"The Killers" [1946]
*"Lady In The Lake" [1946]
*"Port of New York" [1949]
*"The Big Clock" [1948]
*"The Woman In The Window" [1944]
*"He Walked By Night" [1949]
*"The Shanghai Cobra" [1945]
*"Murder My Sweet" [1944]
*"Phantom Lady" [1944]
*"My Favorite Brunette" [1947]
*"Double Indemnity" [1944]
*Lawrence Tierney
*Lawrence Tierney (with Anne Jeffreys above)
*Audrey Totter (with Joan Leslie center).
*"The Maltese Falcon" [1941]
*"Gilda" [1946]
* Supplemental images are noted with an (*) asterisk. My intention is to only enhance the reading experience and not take away from the original publication.